MotoGP | Espargaro: “Aprilia good in Portimao, I didn't ride well”

Aleix Espargaro admitted that he had a complicated weekend in Portimao, and that he owed it to himself. The Aprilia's potential on the Portuguese track left no doubt, given the great pace that Maverick Vinales showed.

Leader of the free practice session, qualifying on the front row and then winning the Sprint, the #12 then maintained his position in the top 3 of the main race, easily setting one of the best times, before being excluded from the podium due to a technical problem. It was later discovered that the problem in question, which involved the gearbox, hindered him from the sixth lap of the race, making his performance even more commendable.

For his part, Espargaro was never able to find the right rhythm. Even in the time attack, an exercise he usually performs very well, this time he fell behind. Fourteenth in Friday practice, he qualified 13th, narrowly missing out on Q2. Although the various incidents that disrupted the sessions had an impact, he also knows that he would not have been at the same level as his teammate if he had been able to avoid them.

“I tried everything in qualifying, but Alex Marquez was waiting for me in the pits and, behind me, he improved his time. I couldn't do anything. If it hadn't been for that, I would have moved on to Q2 and, with the time that I scored, I would have been more or less in the second row”, he analyzed on Saturday, although without bitterness.

Regarding his eighth place in the Sprint, six seconds behind winner Vinales, he added: “Starting 13th, I did a decent Sprint. In the last four or five laps I was quite fast, not far from the leaders. But starting 13th is difficult. In any case, it's not an excuse, I wasn't brilliant at driving.”

Aleix doesn't make excuses

Very composed throughout the weekend, the Spaniard never stopped acknowledging his inferiority, stating from the first tests that he was not “driving perfectly” and that it took him some time to settle in: “I adapted late to the track. It's a track that requires time to understand how to exploit its full potential.”

“It's not really the best track for my driving. I prefer circuits like Qatar, Barcelona or Malaysia, which are more fluid. Here the braking is very aggressive in turns 1, 3 and 5, and then it goes up and down. It's not Just my driving style, I'm not very aggressive. But that's no excuse, I have to be fast everywhere.”

Added to this was a crash “at the worst moment”, which prevented him from avoiding Q1, which would have been fundamental for the rest of the race. Above all, Espargaro felt that “Maverick was fantastic all weekend” and watched his colleague's performance with admiration, hoping to learn some lessons from it.

“He releases the front brake before me. That's what I did in Qatar, releasing the front brake and helping the bike accelerate better. I'm not slowing down properly, I'm not riding well. And then, every session, I feel like I'm late,” he explained Saturday.

“I start a session, I'm 18th, I can't do it, and then in the last laps… This morning, I finished third, and I started to go fast in the last two laps. Even in the Sprint I suffered at the beginning, and in the last three laps I had a similar pace to that of Maverick, practically the same, I was faster than the four guys in front of me. So I'm always a little late!”.

On Sunday, Espargaro was still hoping for a top-five finish, but a contact in the early stages further complicated his situation. “I finished the first lap around 20th place. Then I started to recover positions,” he explained. “My pace wasn't catastrophic. I think my place should have been at least with the factory KTM riders in terms of pace. But frankly I wasn't fast enough all weekend.”

Thanks to the retirements in front of him, including that of his partner, and four successful overtakings, he managed to climb up to eighth place and finish 21.5 seconds behind the winner. “I feel very sorry for Maverick, for Romano (Albesiano, Director Technician) and for all those at Aprilia, because they were having an incredible race”, he said, before drawing a personal conclusion that was obvious to him: “Aprilia was good all weekend, Maverick proved it, but I I didn't drive well. I never felt good with the rear tire, I never had enough grip. I hope we can figure out how to improve.”

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